Georges Kouroussis holds a master degree in
mechanical engineering from the Faculté Polytechnique
de Mons (FPMs) since June 2002. He also holds a PhD in applied sciences from
the FPMs on vibratory nuisances induced by railway traffic, since May 2009. He
works presently as an Associate Professor in the Department of the theoretical
mechanics, dynamics and vibrations in the same faculty. He takes part to the
theoretical mechanics and dynamics Labs, exercises and courses.

Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the
International Institute of Acoustics and Vibrations (IIAV), the European
Association for Structural Dynamics (EASD), the Association Française
de Mécanique (AFM), the European Mechanics Society
(EUROMECH).

Guest-editor of
the international journal Science of the Total
Environment published by Elsevier (ISBN 0048-9697) for a special issue
(Impact on the urban environment and the quality of life from the construction
and operation of LRT (Light Rapid Transit) systems).

Guest-editor of
the international journal Journal of Advanced Transportation
published by Hindawi (ISBN 0197-6729) for an on-going
special issue
(Environmental Airborne and Ground Borne Noise and Vibration from Urban
Transportation Networks).

Local Organizing Committee and Scientific
Committee Chair of the ICSV23(23rd
International Congress on Sound and Vibration) held in Athens (10-14 July
2016). Editor of the associated proceedings.

Member of the Editorial Board of the 12th
International Conference on Computational Structures Technology (CST2014) –
Naples, Italy, 2-5 September 2014.

Member of the Editorial Board of the 15th
International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering
Computing (CC2015) – Prague, Czech Republic, 1-4 September 2015.

Member of the Editorial Board of the 4th
International Conference on Railway Technology: Research, Development and
Maintenance (Railways 2018) –Barcelona, Spain 3-7 September 2018.

Member of the Editorial Board of the 13th
International Conference on Computational Structures Technology (CST2018) –
Barcelona, Spain 4-6 September 2018.

Member of the International Scientific Committee of the First International Conference on Rail
Transportation (ICRT17) – Southwest Jiaotong
University in Chengdu, China, 10-12 July 2017.

Member of the International Scientific Committee of the International Congress on Sound and
Vibration since 2016 (ICSV23, ICSV24, ICSV25).

Research

The assessment of vibrations induced by the railway traffic is becoming an
important subject for the railway operator in the renovation of existing lines
or the installation of new lines. Georges’ research mainly focuses on environmental
impact of vibrations induced by the railway traffic. The research work
performed wants to establish a reliable methodology, using a two-step approach,
in order to predict, from the design stage of a vehicle or of a track, the
forces transmitted by the vehicle to the track-soil system and consequently the
vibration levels in the surroundings. Mainly developed for the urban area, the
proposed model was successfully validated for high-speed line cases and
domestic line cases, for various rail and wheel irregularities. This research
is a field of the UMONS Research Institute for the Science and Management of
Risks (more details can be found on this dedicated
page).

As a part of the research activities of MRDV lab, Georges is still
working on the development of tools related to the simulation of multibody models. The developed framework EasyDyn
dedicated to the simulation of multibody system is based on the generalized
coordinates offering the advantage to work with a minimal set of equations of
motion. Composed of a C++ library and a symbolic tool, the framework was mainly
developed with the concern of readability and compacity. Initially devoted to
education, it is successfully used for research purposes: the railway ground
vibrations model partially based on a multibody model for the vehicle/track
dynamics prediction, the dynamic modelling of human walking with the help of
Virtual Muscle model, the robotic and control application related to the
six-legged robot or the modelling of an automatic gearbox using stabilized
penalty functions for the actuators.

Signal processing for effective vibration
analysis: the problem of acquiring an accurate
time-varying signal from a vibration sensor is of great interest and is largely
used to overcome the assessment of specific indicators. In the case of
vibratory nuisance, the choice of a relevant indicator is unavoidable
and this indicator is defined differently according to the selected reference
text (standards or recommendations). In addition to the interest of comparing
values to well-defined and well-known limits, the knowledge of these standards
allows the use of suitable indicators. It turns out that additional research is
required to provide a definitive assessment of the effects of vibrations. On
the other hand, vibration spectra contain useful information of the vibration
source and an efficient selection of signal processing tools can offer high
performance (e.g. train speed calculation using ground vibrations signals).

Soil-structure interaction is another research topic. This topic also induces the characterisation
of geometrical and dynamic properties of soil, in high connection with
railway-induced ground vibrations. Structural response of a building simulated
during the passage of a tram, discrete modelling of vertical track-soil
coupling for vehicle-track dynamics, or dynamic analysis of embedded
foundations like pile groups, are some example of research areas. All this
research shows the importance of soil-structure interactions, using numerical
formulation based on the finite element method adapted for time domain
simulations. The proposed analysis methodology provides a convincing example of
the capability of the finite element method to reproduce foundation response to
dynamic loading. Some specific numerical challenge (stability of integration
scheme, reasonable computational run times) are associated to this research.

Other research concerns, in a general way, the modal analysis, in
connection with the computed-aided teaching, with the development of a MatLab/Scilab toolbox EasyMod,
related to the experimental modal analysis. This toolbox provides several
functions in order to perform a complete experimental modal analysis with
different kind of identification methods (SISO such as the circle-fit, MIMO
such the LSCE, …). Such efforts that naturally are in keeping with structural
vibration problems (development of dynamic absorbers, fatigue assessment of
aerospace devices under vibratory environment, design of suspension, …) using
modal analysis, operational deflection shape, … For instance, EasyMod can be used to solve structural dynamic problems
and to simply identify how structures vibrate from a non-mathematical
perspective.

Download detailed in-situ experiments on high speed
rail railway lines in Belgium. Three sites were tested
in the South of Belgium, near the French border, and vibrations were measured
up to 100m from each line. Several high impact findings were made regarding the
effect of track type and train speed on vibration levels. A selection of the
experimental results are open access. This research
was undertaken in collaboration with D. P. Connolly, lecturer at Heriot Watt
University in the UK.

Research grants (as responsible or
collaborator)

Ongoing Projects

111 Project – Program of Introducing Talents of
Discipline to Universities (involved world-renowned expert), supported
by Ministry of Education, and the State Administration of Foreign Experts
Affairs (China).

Project INOGRAMS–INnOvations for
a Global RAil Management System for the
national cluster “Pôle de compétitivité
Logistics in Wallonia”. Participation in the WP5:
surveillance passive de voies ferroviaires par capteurs multipoints à fibres
optiques (manager for the department).

·G. Picariello,
“Seismic analyses with frame by macro-element approach: case study on the
Palazzo Dei Consoli in Gubbio-IT”,
Academic year 2017–18 (in collaboration with the University of Naples Federico
II).

·M. D'Hondt,
“Development of a 3D printed scale model for the assessment of the dynamic
response of structures”, Academic year 2017–18 (in collaboration with the
Loughborough University).

[100] B. Olivier, G. Kouroussis, “Multibody
simulation of vehicles equipped with an automatic transmission”, Proceedings of the 13th International
Conference on Motion and Vibration Control (MOVIC2016), Southampton (UK),
July 3-6, 2016.

[161] G. Kouroussis, O. Verlinden,
C. Conti, “Prediction of ground vibrations induced by railway traffic: an
analysis of the modelling assumptions of vehicle and soil”, Proceedings of the 18th International Congress
on Sound and Vibration, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), July 10-14, 2011. CD-ROM